Independent record companies routinely have distribution problems, but few have had the kind of bum luck the electronic label Crosstown Rebels encountered in its first few years. Founded in 2003 by London by the producer-DJ Damian Lazarus, whose sets tend to lean toward the dark and mysterious (see his Fabric 54 mix from last year), Crosstown Rebels had just shipped a Supreme Bachelors 12" in 2003 when Ideal, the label's distributor, went into liquidation. "We were owed a few grand from the sales of those first three releases," Lazarus says today. "Maybe I should have read the signs then."

Maybe, but it's hard to imagine that could have prepared him for both of CR's successive distributors, Intergroove UK and Amato, folding within a year of each other (at the ends of 2006 and 2007, respectively). Between them, they owed Lazarus's label £30,000. "I came very close to packing it in then and there," Lazarus says. "When this happens to you three times, and there are few signs on the horizon that things can improve – except your music – you really have to take a take a deep breath and ask yourself if your work is really worth this kind of aggravation."

Four years on, the answer is a resounding yes. Crosstown Rebels' roster rallied, forgiving Lazarus's debts to them. He liquidated the company, using the proceeds (and borrowing some more) to repurchase the label's name. Investors in Los Angeles injected cash to reboot the label (Lazarus himself now lives in LA). The cure took: Crosstown Rebels had its most bullish year yet in 2010, issuing big DJ favorites by Deniz Kurtel (Yeah), Maceo Plex (the smart Stevie Wonder reworking Vibe Your Love), and Art Department, whose Without You was Resident Advisor's track of the year and Mixmag's No 2.

This year, Crosstown Rebels is taking it from the floor to the world, having issued sharp albums by Plex (Life Index) and Kurtel (Music Watching Over Me) in February and March, respectively. The big one, though, is Art Department's The Drawing Board, out at the end of this month. Many times, dance artists try to "diversify" on their albums, often with iffy results. Kenny Glasgow and Jonny White, the Toronto house veterans behind Art Department, do no such thing: The Drawing Board plays like themes and variations on Without You. Together, its back-to-basics house tracks, at once bubbling and sinister, and White's mournful vocals (very roughly, imagine Ian Curtis recording for Trax Records) grab and hold and don't let go.

"I had known Jonny and Kenny for some years," Lazarus says of his new stars. "[I] had been waiting for them to get their shit together so that they could join the label." Indeed, that sense of familiarity imbues all of Crosstown Rebels' releases. "I do try my hardest to really get to know every artist I work with," Lazarus says. "I want the artists on my label to feel like they have a support network, a family of like-minded people who care and look out for each other. The first moment I met Deniz, even without hearing a note, I knew I wanted to work with her, and when Maceo Plex first handed me his first track writing house music as opposed to tougher techno, I felt that he could soon become an album artist."

That tradition will continue into the year, as Jamie Jones, one of Lazarus's signature artists (his 911 was one of the 2008 singles that signaled Crosstown Rebels' return) is due for an album later in the year as well. "I don't want to say I had a big masterplan," Lazarus shrugs. "All in all, I'm pretty happy I continued."